Gamesmanship
by PatronSaintOfBEGA
Summary: The remotely less daft followup to Sportsmanship. La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose. Rated for a little bit of language.


**Gamesmanship**

_La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose._

_--------_

Needless to say, by then _everyone_ was sick of the arguments. Still, it was a deeply unnerving day when Tyson brought home a second-hand Gamecube and set it up in the Dojo's living room. The machine had only one game: _Super Smash Bros Melee_. Neither of the two teens who broke off from yelling at each other in favour of this new competition had played it before. This, needless to say, was no obstacle to either of them. Brooklyn took to the game with his accustomed level of talent, and Kai, driven by sheer refusal to lose, learned even faster than usual. The Dojo's other visitors that day were worried. Nobody had called anybody a vacant attention-whore or a barely-competent robot for nearly an _hour_, now. Finally, Ming-Ming - informed of the circumstances upon her arrival, and deeply worried - padded hesitantly into the lounge. She paused, not at the startlingly high percentage of undamaged furniture, not at the sight of Bryan sneaking in on a quest identical to hers, but upon noticing the Gamecube. Her eyes narrowed; there were four controllers. Even as she hustled her way to the _reset_ button, Bryan grabbed the third controller and tossed her the fourth.

"I _love_ this game."

--------

"K.O.! K.O.!"

Some time later, a death scream sounded, followed almost instantly by a kind of hiss. On the screen, Bryan's Ness and Ming-Ming's Kirby taunted triumphantly, as Roy and Mewtwo respawned above the stage. Bryan grinned.

"Melee next round."

"Next round," Ming-Ming agreed, executing a neat meteor smash.

The other two players exchanged glances, for the first time ever.

---------

"K.O.! VICTORY: NESS!"

"Hah!" Bryan paused for a sip of beer. Ming-Ming snatched the bottle from him, and restarted the game. It was dark outside, but nobody else had dared venture into the room yet.

"TRIPLE K.O.! VICTORY: KIRBY!"

The score was somewhere around 40-41 between the lilac-haired and feminine competitors respectively. On the other hand, Kai and Brooklyn were having difficulties. Both used to being brilliant, but also woefully lacking in practice at the game, they were _just_ making joint third each round - which still placed them both last. The faintest hint of protest from either, however, simply earned a "Shut _up_!" from the other pair.

--------

"K.O.! VICTORY: NESS!"

Ming-Ming snorted, Bryan smirked, both pressed restart simultaneously. As Roy and Mewtwo were belted off the stage thirty seconds in, Kai took a deep breath and sat back.

"..D'you think they'd notice," Brooklyn muttered, rubbing his eyes, "If we stop playing?"

Kai shrugged contemplatively, staring at his sore thumbs. He had a buzzing, staticky headache and wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to visit the restroom.

"Unlikely."

"Hmm."

"Thinking of quitting, jackass," Kai enquired halfheartedly. His coconversant yawned.

"No. Fuckwit."

"Both of you _shut up_!"

--------

Several hours later than that, Tyson finally steeled his nerves, and tiptoed into a most unusual scene. He paused a few feet past the doorway, and surveyed it again. It was being enacted in silence, except crashes and explosions from the TV, and occasional snarls. Bryan - in cargo pants and vest, his jacket long since discarded in the corner, eyes growing sizeable bags - and Ming-Ming - in slippers and designer tracksuit, hair held lopsidedly under a makeshift bandana - were sat cross-legged and hunched-over about a foot from the said TV. On the screen, from what Tyson could tell, their characters were beating the pixellated shit out of each other. He inched a little further into the room, still glancing around in confusion. The other two Gamecube controllers were lying discarded in a tangle by the couch. _On_ the couch - and here he stopped and stared again - Kai and Brooklyn had fallen asleep leaning against each other's shoulders. They weren't yelling. Neither was perceptibly strangling the other. Occasionally one would murmur or shift, but there was an abject lack of violence. Slowly, cautiously, Tyson grinned. They had finally stopped. Stopped! It was -

"_Hah_! I win, biatch!"

He turned, smile inexorably failing, to see Bryan and Ming-Ming shoving each other and exchanging poisonous looks over their controllers.

He left the room rubbing his head. Here we go again.

**NOTES:**

**Oh dear. In the words of small brother, these things do happen, at this time of night.**

**Yeah, okay, SSBM doesn't really yell out the KOs like that, but hey. If you can't guess/remember who was playing as who, Bryan Ness and Ming-Ming (is there a hyphen? o.o) Kirby. As for the other two - Roy uses fire attacks, and Mewtwo is a psychic Pokemon. Einstein not required to work it out.**

**(feather-duster plays as Roy. Cuz it's fun.)**

**Concerning vacant attention-whores and barely-competent robots; well, take a guess at who's calling who what. feather-duster thought it'd be, umm, nice to get a bit more specific than "OMG ur stoopid"/"NO U"**

**The French bit at the top is a saying meaning (approximately) _the more things change, the more they stay the same_. Mmhmm.**

**This was inspired - er, caused - by a combination of reading Ladya C. Maxine's "Resident Furby" (XD), and playing SSBM until the early hours with two dozy brothers.**

**Kai's headache? All gamers have had it!**

**Review and you get the Player 2 controller...**


End file.
